"God, creator of the universe."
The sensation was not a sound. It was a presence. A certainty that simply appeared in the still-dark space of my consciousness, filling every crevice like water seeping into dry earth.
"Huh…?"
That was my awareness first stirring, but stirring into something that felt… wrong.
My head felt hazy, its weight unnaturally heavy. It was as if this skull was filled with stones, not a brain. And what was more disturbing: the sensation that this was no longer my head. Not the skull belonging to Ray Mei, the keyboard warrior who spent hours in front of a computer.
With my head still feeling as if it were separated from my body by a wide chasm, I tried to focus my thoughts. Enough to ask: Where am I?
But the moment I tried, a jolting, electric sensation struck. Not an ordinary electric shock. This was deeper. As if every nerve was pulled and plucked simultaneously, producing a high, piercing note of pain.
I might have screamed, or perhaps only shouted within my mind. I don't know.
Yet at some point, that hazy head of mine began to creep back into my possession. Slowly, like fog swept away by the wind, I could feel that 'I' and 'this head' were starting to merge again. The gap between command and movement narrowed.
"God, creator of the universe."
There it was again.
Actually? What… is that?
Not from my ears. This was directly inside. Inside the skull. A whisper that used… my own tone of voice? But I wasn't thinking it. I was trying to feel my body, trying to move my fingers.
So it was very surprising that this kept appearing in my head, over and over, like a stuck recording.
"God, creator of the universe."
Again and again.
The voice echoed in the empty chamber of my awareness. Not loud, but inescapable. It happened continuously, with a constant rhythm and exactly the same time between each repetition. Like the ticking of an invisible clock.
This made me uncomfortable, triggering a restlessness that grew in my chest. Moreover, amidst all this, it felt like I couldn't wake up. My body refused my own command to open my eyes, to rise.
With the voice continuously echoing in my head, the discomfort morphed into a subtle torment. It felt as if I was being force-fed a mantra by a madman, and that mantra was plastered to my ear and played at full volume, repeatedly, without mercy, without a pause for breath.
"Wake up, you stupid body! I have a date with Mei Lin this morning!"
Another grumbling voice broke through. Not the 'God' whisper. This was clearer, more… emotional. Angry and annoyed. And oddly, it sounded like it wasn't mine. The voice was lighter, younger, its timbre different.
A truly strange sensation for oneself: hearing another voice in your head that had different vocal characteristics.
"Am I in the realm of the dead?"
That grumbling voice, which wasn't mine, reappeared, filling my already crowded mental channels. It asked, and the question made sense given my situation.
Everything was dark. My mind was filled with the sound of the 'God, creator of the universe' mantra. All signs of death. It truly made me believe, at least for a fraction of a second, that I had died and this was the afterlife.
But I suppose I discovered a unique fact… that the afterlife truly exists and God is also an entity that fundamentally exists in the world. Well, at least I had tried to be a good person during my life.
Not evil. Always paid my taxes, though always grumbling about it. Helped my mother carry the groceries.
But still!
I didn't want to die this young! And why did I have to die in front of my computer, huh… I had just been looking at an interesting news story: the United States government mentioned a discovery of rocks in California that were currently being studied by several researchers. I had been following its progress for several months until yesterday, March 31st! I hadn't even read the latest update!
"Damn this world! I just got a girlfriend! Why did I have to die at a moment like this!"
Unconsciously, I started grumbling, and that 'voice of mine that didn't sound like mine' reappeared, complete with that light, youthful character. Actually, describing it was quite confusing because the sensation was truly strange. It was like another person had been crammed into your skull and they were annoyed because their plans were ruined.
After an unknown amount of time, I felt a change. A possibility of movement. I felt a slight twitch in my eye, a small muscle spasm in my right eyelid.
Then, it felt as if my whole body truly 'turned on', regaining neural connections.
After what I estimated to be hours, during which I was truly not inside my own body only floating in passive consciousness control began to flow back.
"God, creator of the universe."
"God, creator of the universe."
"God, theDEAD creator of the universe."
"God, creator of the universe."
The final assault. Four times in a row. The third one with the word 'dead' inserted in the middle, dry and flat, more terrifying than if it had been shouted.
That strange and eerie whisper rained down on my head, pressing on my consciousness until it nearly shattered. I felt that if this continued, my consciousness might truly sever, dissolving into this repetitive madness.
But then… it stopped.
Like someone cut a cord. A silence that suddenly pierced my inner ear. And in that fragile silence, a realization: my body responded. It truly responded.
I could feel my fingertips, the coldness of the floor against my back, the coarse fabric on my skin.
Before I could process further, a sound from outside broke through.
A young woman's voice. Speaking. But the language… I had truly never known it before. It sounded like a strange mix of Chinese tones, English rhythm, loanwords resembling German, and an Italian-like intonation.
An impossible linguistic amalgamation, yet it was real, sounding in my ears which were still ringing.
I set aside the language analysis. I had my own priority: opening my eyes. Knowing where I was.
My eyelids felt as if they were partially sewn shut. I exerted effort, slowly, and a blinding white light immediately rushed in, flooding my vision which had long been accustomed to the darkness.
I blinked rapidly, reflexive tears wetting the corners of my eyes. Within a few blinks, blurry shadows began to form shapes.
"?@#_)+;!"
That woman's voice again. Now clearer: soft, somewhat high-pitched, and… calming? But from the rising tone at the end and the quick tempo, it seemed the woman was angry at me.
Honestly, I was just guessing. My head was still throbbing with a heavy remnant of dizziness, making it hard for my eyes to focus. The world was still trembling and blurry at its edges.
I forced myself to focus, ignoring the pulse at my temples.
And the world crystallized.
Before me sat a beautiful young girl even very beautiful by top model standards. She was perhaps around 16 to 17 years old. Hair the color of earth-brown, tied loosely at the back. Light blue eyes, a color typical of Europeans.
But her body… was short. Thin. As if malnourished, or perhaps that was just her natural state.
Honestly, I didn't know who this woman was. But if she ate properly, her beauty wouldn't feel wasted. She should pay more attention to her nutrition.
In my previous life, I once read that in this life, beauty or handsomeness might help a person's life by up to half a percent. I didn't really care about the statistics, but the point was clear.
The girl wore a simple dress made of thick, faded cream-colored fabric. The design… was very outdated. Like women's clothing in paintings from the 16th or 17th century that I had seen in virtual museums.
High collar, long sleeves, a loose cut that hid her body shape. Yet, perhaps precisely because of that simple clothing, or the way she sat up straight, the girl looked very proper.
Her propriety wasn't a displayed attitude, but an inherent aura.
My survival instinct pushed me to look around. To find context. To find the answer to 'where'.
And when my eyes looked down, towards the hand resting on the wooden table I froze.
That… was not my hand.
This hand was slimmer, yet more muscular. The skin was coarser, with dark spots that might be old scars or ingrained dirt. On the back of the right hand, there was a purplish bruise that looked fresh. On the fingers, there were several small, dried scratch marks.
A worker's hand. A stranger's hand.
An instinctive dread crept up. Without thinking, that strange hand moved to grasp my own head. That rough palm pressed against my forehead, as if trying to push back a shifting reality.
"Could it be… what I think it is?"
The voice in my head the one that felt like it wasn't mine appeared again. This time with a tone full of astonishment and… restrained anxiety. That voice began to consider a possibility.
The most childish and silly possibility, fitting the kinds of stories like this that I often read. Stories where the main character gains super strong abilities after experiencing something impossible.
I… reincarnated… right?
The certainty came not with a shout, but with a tired sigh within my mind. I had read stories like this so often. This was a very common trope for novels in countries like China, Japan, or Korea.
So common, that when facing it, I didn't feel surprised, only felt… "ah, so this is what's happening." Like finding a guessed ending to a movie that's played often.
But there was one thing that immediately stuck, banishing that false resignation.
Why? Why could I be here?
That question was more fundamental than 'how'. I truly hadn't done anything that would allow myself to arrive in another world… I hadn't prayed to a god, hadn't touched a strange artifact or bought a weird book containing a luck ritual, hadn't been hit by a truck.
I just… existed. Then didn't. Then existed here.
Wait!
This means… in my place of origin… on Earth… what about Ray Mei's body? Gone? Coma? Or… empty? My family, what would they think? My girlfriend? My office colleagues whom I'd just replied to in the group chat earlier that afternoon?
A terrible thought that everyone I knew would face my sudden disappearance arose, stabbing right into my solar plexus. The pain was sudden, physical, and intense.
Without realizing it, something at the corner of my eye felt hot. Then wet. Tears flowed, wetting the hand still pressed to my forehead, seeping into the rough skin.
"Argh!"
As that sadness and confusion peaked, a mental dam inside my head burst.
It wasn't Ray Mei's memories. This was something else. Something familiar but not mine. A massive flood of foreign information struck, entering the center of my mind with nearly crushing force.
Friedrich Wolff. 21 years old.
Citizen of the Lahelu Empire, Indropa Continent, Capital State of Auster, Capital City of Gobsburgs. He was a carpenter.
Had just enlisted with a company seeking a new colony in the Gilgamesh Archipelago.
Images followed. A girl with brown hair and the same light blue eyes as the girl before me her name was Lisa Wolff, 16 years old, younger sister, a seamstress.
A middle-aged woman with a tired face and the same eyes, mother, still alive, a devout follower of the Glaubenkirche. A faint shadow of a man Father, killed in a bar brawl when Friedrich was 5 years old.
Then emotions. His dream of gaining as much wealth as possible on the colony mission. A deep, protective love for Lisa. Worry about leaving them. Pride at being accepted into the mission.
All of it decades of experience, habits, knowledge of the language, the memory of the taste of the soup in front of me flooded my brain in no more than a second.
It was the accumulated life experience of another person, forcibly made mine.
"Brother! Are you listening!"
A voice from the real world pierced that internal chaos like a knife. The girl spoke again, in Rethian with an Auster accent. This time, she looked clearly angry.
Her thin eyebrows were furrowed, her light blue eyes stared sharply at me, her pale lips hardened into a straight line.
But I couldn't answer. The flood of information panicked me, jammed my thoughts, made me sit silently like a fool who had lost his mind.
I felt Friedrich Wolff and Ray Mei clash within one skull, the two identities rejecting each other, each claiming this body.
Yet, amidst that battle, a feeling cried out in my head: You are no longer Ray Mei. In the eyes of this world, you are Friedrich Wolff.
"Brother, Brother, are you alright?"
Lisa's voice changed drastically. Genuine, sincere worry replaced the anger. Her high pitch softened, her eyes widened, full of the fear of a little sister seeing her brother act strangely.
She leaned forward slightly.
And right there, I felt it. Something not from Ray Mei. When her worried blue eyes looked at me, a sudden, intense warmth arose in my chest.
A deep, protective, and… familiar affection. It was Friedrich's feeling for Lisa. And that feeling was now inside me, forced in by the memories just crammed in.
I hated it. I hated that this emotion wasn't my choice. But I also couldn't deny its authenticity in this rapidly beating heart.
That affection truly felt like it was forcibly inserted into me. Something that was clearly, absolutely not Ray Mei's. And cognitively, I hadn't accepted that I had a younger sister named Lisa Wolff in my life. I was still an only child to my parents in the old world.
But at that moment, as rejection and acceptance clashed, creating an impasse in my mind, Lisa kept calling. Her voice grew higher, faster, more filled with genuine panic.
"I'm fine, just continue your meal, Lisa."
The sentence came out before I could think of a translation from Earth's language. It came out on its own. This body responded with an automatic response, with a thick Rethian accent, with the characteristic tone of an annoyed yet gentle older brother being disturbed.
And after those words were spoken, something happened.
Ray Mei… seemed to disappear. Everything was taken over by Friedrich Wolff yet it wasn't quite Friedrich Wolff either. I became neither myself nor him.
After all that, I could finally observe my surroundings more calmly, though my heart still pounded hard.
I was sitting at a simple, rectangular wooden dining table, its surface covered with scratches and dents from years of use. In front of me was a wooden bowl containing food: a clear, yellowish soup with orange carrot pieces and cream-colored potatoes floating in it.
Beside it, a hard, dark brown, round loaf of bread. Next to the bowl, a wooden spoon.
I knew from Friedrich's memory: this was "Kartoffel- und Karottensuppe," the name of this food in Rethian.
"What's wrong with you, Brother?" Lisa asked me something again. She was sitting up straight again, but her worried expression hadn't completely disappeared. "You suddenly went quiet while we were talking."
She continued, her eyes not leaving me. "Are you sick?"
The question was simple, but it felt piercing. It reminded me how strange this situation was from her perspective.
I could truly imagine it: we're eating, chatting about tomorrow's plans, and suddenly your conversation partner freezes, their eyes go blank, then they hold their head as if in pain, then fall completely silent while their eyes dart around the room like a stranger's.
Of course it's uncomfortable. Of course it causes anxiety.
"No!" my voice came out a little too loud, sounding defensive.
I took a breath and tried to lower the tension in my shoulders. "Relax! I was just… thinking."
I pretended to be relaxed, shrugged like someone bothered by a trivial matter, then quickly picked up the wooden spoon. I scooped up some soup, bringing the spoon containing broth and a piece of potato to my mouth.
The taste… was ordinary. Bland, but warm. I swallowed, trying to look normal.
"Alright…?" Lisa said. Her tone was still doubtful. She started eating again, taking a piece of bread and dipping it into the soup.
But those light blue eyes of hers still occasionally stole glances at me, with a look that tried to observe, tried to figure out if I was truly okay.
However, setting aside that performance of normalcy, there was a thought that kept screaming in my head. A thought that was disturbing and wouldn't be silent.
Can I return to Earth?
While my mouth chewed the hard bread and Ray Mei's gums complained silently, I thought about it. If this were an ordinary isekai or transmigration story like the ones I usually read, there should be some kind of way to go home… or no way home at all.
Those two camps. The camp of 'hope' and the camp of 'resignation'.
No.
A hard, sudden resolve emerged, declaring that I had to return at the very least to say goodbye to my family, my girlfriend, and my friends.
In the middle of a strange dining table, with the taste of bland soup still on my tongue and the memories of two lives clawing at each other in my head, I made a vow to the deepest core of myself:
I will find a way back. To Earth. To home.
No matter what.
…
"A 20-year plan starts with the most ordinary day. That's its genius. Who would suspect that waking up, eating soup, and going to an interview are the first moves in the ritual?"